What he found was that the claim itself is skimpy and provides no actual proof the claimed tracking. It misrepresents what the cited location notification on Windows Phone represents. And it uses a non-standard phone/wireless carrier configuration that further undermines the credibility of the complaint.

And Rivera has own insider experience dealing with Microsoft about various Windows Phone issues, thanks to his work with the ChevronWP7 team, which seeks to open Windows Phone development for enthusiast developers. This team has worked closely with the Windows Phone team at Microsoft over the past year.

"Microsoft goes out of its way to mask hardware IDs," Rivera notes, undercutting the notion that Microsoft could somehow be collecting this information, a central claim of the lawsuit. He cites an API that Microsoft uses on Windows Phone to "protect the privacy of a device by providing applications with a hashed version" of the device's unique identifier.

Is Microsoft using this obfuscation for its own internal services? Microsoft says it is not storing user location data, and even with a casual examination of the complaint, Rivera says Microsoft's contention appears to be borne out. But he'll be doing testing in the near future to definitively confirm or rebuke this charge.

What I Use

Like many, I was hoping to see a new Lumia flagship before the end of 2014, and while I was pleasantly surprised in some ways by both the Lumia 735 and 830, neither offers the level of performance or best-in-market camera quality I had come to expected from Microsoft/Nokia's high-end devices. So I pulled the trigger on an unlocked Windows Phone flagship that will hopefully take me through at least the first half of this year. Or until Microsoft gets off its low-end fixation and satisfies the needs of its biggest fans....More

It's been a while since the last What I Use, but there haven't been many major changes since late last year: Surface Pro 3 has become my go-to travel companion, I've added a third cellphone line for testing Windows Phone, Android and iPhone side-by-side, and have rotated through some new tablets and other devices. We've also switched from FIOS to Comcast and added to our set-top box collection....More